It is said that the infections have drastically changed in recent years. The classical infections have become latent, while infections that are difficult to treat and occur depending on the resistance of a patient to infections are increasing. Such infections occurring depending on the state of a patient are called opportunistic infections. Typical pathogens for opportunistic infections (herpes simplex virus type I) and their diseases are shown in Table 1. Many of the diseases are serious although they are caused by the same kind of pathogen.
TABLE 1 ______________________________________ first infection relapse infection under decreased infection-protective ability stomatitis lip herpes herpes eczema corneal herpes generalized infection adult encephalitis ______________________________________
The opportunistic infections refer to the state in which infections have been induced by pathogens of usually little pathogenity because the infection-protective ability of a patient is decreased for some reasons (increased susceptibility to infections). Hence, an agent having a recovery effect of infection-protective ability and an antimicrobial agent effective against pathogens are used to treat the opportunistic infections. In particular, the agent having a recovery effect of infection-protective ability is regarded as indispensable for essential treatment of the opportunistic infections.
However, the opportunistic infections show similar clinical symptoms although many are caused by a plurality of pathogens, and from the clinical symptoms, it is difficult to identify the pathogen, so it is also difficult to select a suitable antimicrobial agent for use in the opportunistic infections. Even if a suitable antimicrobial agent can be selected, substantial treatment of the opportunistic infections would not be achieved until the resistance of the patient is recovered. However, there are not a few cases where the lowered general conditions of the patient permit such an agent having a recovery effect of infection-protective ability to adversely induce a decrease in the infection-protective ability of the patient. At present, there is no agent that can be administered with confidence to treat or prevent the opportunistic infections.
Aconite tuber is tuberous roots of Aconitum carmichaeli of the family Ranunculaceae or other plants of the same genus, and it has been used for a long time as cardiotonic, analgesic, antiphlogistic, etc.
Aconite-alkaloids are aconite tuber-derived alkaloids known to have efficacy as analgesic, antiphlogistic, etc., and typical examples are benzoylmesaconine, benzoylaconine, benzoylhypaconine, 14-anisoylaconine, neoline, ignavine, mesaconine, hypaconine, 16-epi-pyromesaconitine, 16-epi-pyraconitine, .sup.15 -.alpha.-hydroxyneoline and ajaconine.
Rhizomes of Zingiber officinale Roscoe of the family Zingiberaceae have, for a long time, been used as ginger in medical formulation regarded as peptic, anti-emetic or analgesic, or in other medical formulation. In addition, gingerol as a component of ginger is known to have efficacy as antipyretic, analgesic, etc.
However, aconite tuber or an extract thereof or aconite-alkaloids or derivatives thereof, or ginger, dried ginger or an extract thereof, or gingerol or analogues thereof have never been used to treat infections such as virus infections, fungal infections, opportunistic infections, etc.